Well, another part of my past has gone away. I read with a little bit of sadness that The Weekly World News, the most outrageous, and the goofiest of all the supermarket tabloids, is ceasing publication next month.It is another connection I had to Tower Records that's gone. Let me explain.
When I started at Tower in 1984, I was first introduced to this wacky "magazine." Every week, some store employee would bring it in and we'd have a good laugh reading the incredible and ridiculous stories and headlines it always screamed, like "Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby" and nonsense like that. (They always seemed to be obsessed with aliens for some reason.) The stories ranged from Elvis sightings, apes getting into colleges (see above), Titanic survivors found on icebergs, and just about every goofy and nutty thing you (or rather they) could possibly think of.
It brought to the world a "writer" named Ed Anger, who always seemed to be pissed off about everything. I love the title of his book, "Let's Pave the Stupid Rainforests and Give School Teachers Stun Guns." The magazine was hilarious, as the writers sure had vivid imaginations and great senses of humor. It was actually published by the same folks who brought us the National Enquirer (and it made the Enquirer look like The New York Times in comparison).
For more on the Weekly World News' demise, check out this article:
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/07/24/instapollamericanow-mourning-the-weekly-world-news/?ncid=NWS00010000000001
I'm sure aliens all over the universe are crying about their favorite earthly magazine's fade into history.
4 comments:
The end of an era...but don't be too sad. For a cheesy tabloid fix, there's always the Post.
WWN was one of my guilty pleasures. I'd buy an issue about once a year, hunker down and read it, cover-to-cover, in an hour or so. I guess the real world caught up with it for outrageousness... almost, anyway.
Definitely was a guilty pleasure. Sorry to see it's gone. And you're right, MCW. There's always The New York Post...
Bat Boy will be sorely missed!
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